painting bumpers and rims

[felskee]

what paints and steps should i take to paint all of my rims and bumpers

 

[BattelWagun]

Tricky to do and get right, by right I mean having a finish that still looks good years down the road. I would get them media blasted first (especially wheels, the invisible crud that bauild up on them is ridiculous), and then you can always go the trusty rattle can route (don't forget to use a good primer first.). If you don't get anything media blasted, give it all a REALLY good cleaning. You might have to treat the wheels with a chemical stripper as some have clear coatings on them. then scuff the bumpers really good with some steel wool, and scuff the wheels up too. Make sure you do this as i's what creates a surface for the paint to adhere to. Then primer it up, let dry for a day or two. Paint it with color of your choice, and I would suggest clear coating it for protection. Depending on what quality finish you want, there may need to be some wet sanding to smooth out the paint between coats too.

I'm not sure what paints to use, maybe someone else on here can make recommendations.

 

[arod3776]

with that said, does the wheels look cheap, if they are painted even by a professionl shop

 

[BattelWagun]

with that said, does the wheels look cheap, if they are painted even by a professionl shop

Well that depends on personal opinions, I personally feel that most stock wheels look crappy when painted. Even if it's done right.

 

[chamillionTC]

You could do it yourself if you got patience. Took me about four days.

I painted some pitted chrome/black rims. Can't really tell in this picture but they were shot as ****:



Washed them with soap.
Dried them.
Sanded them down with 80 grit until I couldn't feel my hands.
Then I sanded them down again with I think 220 grit until the rims looked like shit.
Wiped them down & sprayed a layer of etching primer then a few layers of automotive primer & wet sanded it.
Then I did a whole can of Rust-O-Leum gloss black paint per rim, I let about an hour pass between coats.
Then I wet sanded whatever needed to be wet sanded.
Then I used about two cans of Duplicolor clear for all four rims.
Lower left is before, top right is after (this pic was April 2011):



This is the rims now as of October 2011:



Those white lines are tire foam. No rock chips, cracks, & hasn't faded at all. When it's all cleaned up it matches the onyx black almost perfectly. These 22's are my winter rims though which is why I went this route. Someone on GMFullSize went this same route with his NNBS chrome bumpers & he had the same satisfactory results as me. Just depends if you got the patience. Lol.

 

[raptorforme93]

I want to get my front and rear bumpers color matched gloss black and I am definitely willing to buy all the supplies and put in the time to do it correctly with tons of sanding and everything, but I have no idea what to actually do? I think these would be good for my first paint project. Lol. What is the proper way to go about repainting them?

 

[chamillionTC]

http://www.gmfullsize.com/forum/showthread.php?t=94767

 

[raptorforme93]

Perfect Thank you!!

 

[chamillionTC]

No problem bro let us know how it ends up for you + pics.